Billionaires ‘Bunker’-Down for Trumpocalypse

Last year we took you inside the communal bunker of Vivos Indiana, a shelter “strategically located in midwestern America” and “specifically built during the Cold War to withstand a 20 megaton blast”. The impervious underground complex was designed to accommodate up to 80 people, for a minimum of one year of fully autonomous survival, without needing to return to the surface.

Unfortunately, California’s billionaire techies and movie stars are slightly out of driving range for the Vivos Inidiana communal bunker so they’re having to build their own luxurious underground hideouts instead. And, as it turns out, the underground bunker construction business is booming with “Rising S Bunkers” of Texas telling the Hollywood Reporter that their sales are up 700% YoY.

As Gary Lynch, of Rising S Bunkers, points out “any time there is a turbulent political landscape, we see a spike in our sales.” Well, not many people would argue that this is among the most “turbulent” election years ever so it’s probably no wonder that the bunkers, which can run up to $8 million or more, are flying off the shelves. In case you were wondering, the 12-stall underground horse shelter is an incremental $98,500.

Seems the liberal elite of Hollywood and San Francisco are fairly worried about the consequences of a potential Trump victory. That said, Mike Peters, owner of Utah-based Ultimate Bunker, thinks we’re screwed either way saying “people are going for luxury [to] live underground because they see the future is going to be rough…everyone I’ve talked to thinks we are doomed, no matter who is elected.”

As the Hollywood Reporter points out, California’s mega-stars are building multi-million dollar bunkers from Napa to Minneapolis complete with all the amenities from swimming pools and game rooms to underground horse stables.

Rising S Bunkers installed a 37-room, 9,000-square-foot complex in Napa Valley for an Academy Award-winning client that rang in at $10.28 million, with a bowling alley, sauna, jacuzzi, shooting range and an ultra-large home theater. Swimming pools, greenhouses, game rooms and gyms are other amenities offered. This year, on another Napa Valley property, the company constructed a $9 million, 7,600-square-foot compound with horse stables and accommodations for 12, along with four escape tunnels leading to outlets on the estate, multiple hidden rooms — in case “you let someone in whom you do not fully trust,” says Lynch — and an aboveground safe house “disguised as a horse barn.”

Business has doubled in the past year at Ultimate Bunker, which just built a $10 million complex on a 700-acre property a few hours north of Minneapolis for a client “known for television, who has his own show,” says Peters. Two 1,000-square-foot bunkers (one for storage) are connected by 300 feet of tunnels to the main 6,800-square-foot home as well as three guesthouses that each boast a $200,000 bunker “to take care of his family and friends,” says Peters. “It’s like an underground mansion with more mansions on top of it.”

Al Corbi, president and founder of S.A.F.E. (Strategically Armored & Fortified Environments), with offices in West Hollywood, says that his most spectacular projects were $100 million subterranean residences, one for a global venture capitalist and the other for an East Coast developer to mimic the Universal CityWalk promenade, with a pizzeria and wellness outpost that, he says, “resembles a Burke Williams day spa.” Corbi says both bunkers protect from nuclear holocaust (8 feet of soil blocks radioactive fallout), pandemic (a positive-pressure air system with HEPA filters keeps contaminants out), electromagnetic pulses and solar flares (using a metal encasement), among other threats.

So what do these underground palaces look like? Here’s a look at the $8.35 million, 6,000-square-foot model from Rising S Bunkers:

The model includes a decked-out game room.

A swimming pool measuring 40 feet in length.

Fitness rooms are a must to compensate for a lack of outside activity.